Has the National Security Agency’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records actually helped to prevent terrorist attacks?
No, according to the 300-page report issued this month by a panel of legal and intelligence experts appointed by President Obama. ...NYT,editorial
Will that do anything to change things?
No. A federal judge has dismissed the results, defends government intrusion because he believes NSA's director when he says, "We’re not authorized to do it. We aren’t doing it."
Yes, Judge Pauley actually sits on the federal bench. Someone appointed him. Clinton appointed him. You understand how it works yet? No one in power -- Clinton, Nixon, Tyler, Polk, or Cleveland, Obama, federal judges, or the White Rabbit -- wants to let go of any part of that power.
Somebody out here doesn't like what's happening.
Following the decision, vandals began defacing the Wikipedia entry for the district court judge who issued the decision: the Hon. William H. Pauley III.
One vandal protested the decision by changing Judge Pauley’s biography to note that he was a “Terrorist, Enemy of the People, and The Constitution of the United States," first reported by LittleGreenFootball's Charles Johnson.
A second edit, made a couple of hours after the first, changed Pauley’s biography to include that he was “an un-American scumbag who allowed the NSA to continue it [sic] unconstitutional practices.”
The scenario was similar to an earlier controversy, in which an anonymous editor who changed Edward Snowden's Wikipedia page to describe him as a "traitor" instead of a "dissident" turned out to belong to a U.S. Senate computer on Capitol Hill. Neither of the recent vandals targeting Judge Pauley's Wikipedia entry came from government computers -- one of the edits was made from New York and the other from California. ...IBTimes
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Political Wire links to The Week's "13 craziest," among which these stood out.
"I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet."
That one comes from a freedom lovin' southerner. But the tussles with stupidity don't just come from the deep South. The common thread seems to be Republican knuckledraggers and includes a large dose of Texas where not a whole lot is understood about wimmins and other inflatable dolls.
"In the emergency room they have what's called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out."
It boggles, don't it? In Texas, according to another Republican Rep, men are exempted from the downsides of pregnancy, are confident of their own moral stance, and are expected to take their pleasures wherever they find them.
"Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?"
